


valley of the shadow of death

by Lycoris_03



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Asgard (Marvel), Blood and Gore, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Helheimr | Hel (Realm), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Miðgarðr | Midgard, Muspellsheimr | Muspelsheim, Niflheimr | Niflheim, Not Canon Compliant, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Svartálfaheimr | Svartalfheim, Trauma, Vanaheimr | Vanaheim, Álfheimr | Alfheim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 13:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycoris_03/pseuds/Lycoris_03
Summary: Loki, after his near death on Svartalfheim, returns to Asgard to face punishment. What he gets instead is a wife. Odin uses his second son to negotiate trade agreements with a Vanir lord, and a less-than-ideal situation slowly turns into something he can't live without.





	valley of the shadow of death

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M, just to be safe. Mostly blood and gore and some adult themes.

There was something off about his betrothed, Loki noted. Nevertheless, he clasped his hands in front of him and inclined his head so his helmet hid his eyes and watched.

She stood on the other end of the hall in his colours, green and gold and black wrapping around her body seamlessly, in stark contrast to her pale skin, so much like his own. Her hair, Loki thought, was just as dark as his; its length - it was very long, it seemed, despite how it was styled - was coiled around her head in elaborate braids that seemed to mimic snakes. He liked it when someone wore his colours. She must've noticed his scrutiny because she looked up, met his eyes, and smirked.

He would be hard-pressed to describe the ceremony that followed. She was someone from somewhere important - it hardly mattered to him though it evidently mattered to the All-Father. She'd come with a small envoy of handmaidens. No guards, no trinkets from her home. Just her in her ridiculously perfect gown and a few girls.

There was some magic involved. He could hear his mother chanting and feel her seidr weave across his bare skin, the hand that grasped her bare forearm. He blinked, and the moment had passed.

Thor had told him of the ridiculous ceremonies the Midgardians had to celebrate such an alliance (that was what it was, wasn't it?). Women dressed in frilly white skirts and men in black-and-white outfits engaging in elaborate displays of public affection who pledged themselves to each other with a few words and bands of metal. Thor had also told him how quickly those alliances dissolved. Ten years was considered quite a long relationship. Ten years was a blink of an eye.

There was feasting afterwards - Asgardians never passed up the chance to indulge in good meat and mead. He sat at the high table, watching the people laughing and singing with a sort of half-hearted indifference. He might have been a prince, but always the second.

His bride sat to his right, demure and quiet. The only indication she wasn't entirely brain-dead was the slight twitch of her eyes and they scanned the room. Loki considered leaving an illusion of the two of them there and retire early. Other vows had to be made, far from prying eyes, and he wanted to get that over with as quickly as possible so he could leave the insufferable presence of his fellow Asgardians. But they weren't really his fellows. He doubted the All-Father had told the girl of his heritage before agreeing to the arrangement. And it was a girl, really. Loki was past his first millennia. She couldn't be older than seven centuries. He wasn't old by any means, but she had surely been married off the instant she had reached childbearing age. (Asgardians aged differently - they reached physical adulthood in twenty or so years much as Midgardians did, and then they aged very slowly. It would, in fact, take half a millennia for them to reach peak fertility) Yet there was no fear, or apprehension in her eyes when she slanted a look at him. He might've mistaken it for naivety but for the snake-like smirk she sent his way.

"So eager to get away from your compatriots, my lord?" she inquired, with a lilting tone that was meant to be teasing. It would have been, except for how her head snapped up and she cut herself off at "lord".

Loki tore his eyes away from the forearm he had been covertly watching - the one he had grasped when they had said their initial vows, which she had been idly brushing her fingers across - and followed her line of sight. Some beast - it was hardly humanoid, much less Aesir - was standing in the entrance to the hall. The men, who had shucked off their armour and anything, really, to drink, had not noticed. He hadn't either, and inwardly cursed himself for not being more wary. He had sent the Jotunn in at his brother's botched coronation. It made sense that something would come for them now.

There was a flash of movement to his right, one he registered as _drawing weapon_ as he drew on his seidr and hurled one of his conjured daggers at the beast. It sailed, guided by his magic, over the heads of the celebrating Aesir and sunk - with a sickening, wet thunk - into the beast's right eye. A second dagger sunk into its left. He looked sharply at the girl who stood to his right - a girl who had just begun to lower her arm. She even had the nerve to look sheepish as she shrugged, in time with the beast's body hitting the floor. It didn't' take long for the men to notice it, and in the ensuing chaos, she grabbed his hand. Resisting the urge push her hand away, he looked at her, her deep eyes meeting his guilelessly.

"Now is a good time as any to slip away, if you wish," she said, dimpling. He couldn't stop the twitch of his lips in time, and she grinned at him. Pulling her from her seat, he passed by his mother, who was watching with amusement, and leaned down to press a kiss to her hair.

"I think this is a good time to sneak away. Do convey our regrets to our guests, Mother." She smiled at him, warm brown eyes caressing his face. While Odin was never really his father, there was no question that this was his mother. His bride tugged, almost impatiently, on the hand she held, and he straightened up.

They very nearly made it out of the hall unaccosted before his brother, great, oafish, Thor, god of inopportune moments, clapped him on the back.

"Getting an early start, I see," Thor boomed, jovially and more that slightly drunk from the mead. "You don't want to keep your fair maiden waiting!" There were cheers and catcalls and all manners of creative innuendos from the men gathered behind him. He dared a glance at the girl and was mildly surprised not to see any maidenly flush on her pale cheeks. Her voice too, held no hint of embarrassment.

"Of course, my lord, we will be on our way at once." Her voice was sickly sweet with a tone that hinted, mockingly, of a servant addressing his master, with a light, steely undertone. He smirked. With a wave of his seidr, he cloaked them from sight.

"Am I to assume that you've just made us invisible, m'lord?" she asked, pleasantly inquiring. He smiled and offered her his arm, which she took unflinchingly.

They meandered down the gilded hallways of the palace, murmuring benign nothings about the weather and the food to each other before they arrived at his room. Releasing her arm to touch the door, he watched her watch the door fade in a shimmer of gold with fascination.

"To ensure my great oaf of a brother cannot open the door at any moment," he answered her unspoken question.

"But surely," she said, with wide, falsely innocent eyes, "he could break the door down, if he is such a great oaf?" They shared a chuckle as he escorted her into his room and sealed the door behind him.

The following moments would have been awkward but for her innocuous questions.

"Somehow I expected there to be more black."

"Well I'm afraid I may have to disappoint." She turned to smile up at him - she was a whole head shorter - and tugged on his earlobe. Inclining his head, he allowed, with a small smile, for her to remove his horned helmet.

"Are the horns to instill fear in your enemies or to simply add to your height?" It was amusing to watch her struggle not to drop the thing - it was quite heavy - and he had to reach out a hand to catch it when it wobbled in her quivering hand.

"It stays on my head by sheer force of will, and, of course, a bit of magic." Tucking the horned thing away in one of his pocket dimensions, he strode over to his bed and sat down to tug off his boots. She had followed, and remained at a wholly appropriate distance.

"May I sit? I'd feel like I was intruding if I didn't ask." He nodded, and she sat on the other end of the bed, black skirts pooling around her crossed ankles. After a moment, when he had removed his outer coat and she had removed her boots, she turned to face him, cross-legged on his bed. He had just begun to broach the topic of the necessary vows they had to make - _consummate the marriage_ , a part of his mind whispered - when she opened her mouth and cut him off, no doubt clear on what he was going to say.

"What do you think of me, m'lord?" There was a certain ambiguity to the question, but by the tone of her voice it was clear what she meant.

"You should call me Loki. I confess I hardly know you. You are very young - " she let out an undignified snort at this " - yet you are not defenceless. I only did just meet you a few hours prior." He shifted so one leg was on the mattress, turning his body to face her. "What do you see, when you look at me?"

Her lips curved into a slow, small smile, and he realized, with a sickening sensation, that she knew more about him than he'd like. There was a hard glint in her eyes and suddenly, they were not prince of Asgard and his new wife, but predator and prey. He felt trapped, suddenly, so he fixed his smirk firmly on his implacable face, hoping she hadn't noticed the flicker in her eyes (but of course she had), and quickly made an illusion of himself while he silently and invisibly removed himself from where he was. Standing a little ways to the side, he could see both his eyes and hers.

"Loki Odinson," she began, "second-born son of Asgard and the god of lies and mischief, or so I've been told." There was something malicious there that terrified him for a moment before he shook it off. "But not really an Odinson, I think," she said, and he froze. "Not an Odinson, but perhaps Friggason.

"I tell you, Loki of Asgard, what I see of you. I see a prince the people tolerate, whose colours few can wear with pride. I see a god, who, despite being a god, finds himself only known for his silver tongue and petty tricks. I see a prince who stands in the shadows - who is a shadow -, a distant moon to your dear brother's bright, burning star. I see jealously, anger, hate and pain, all locked up in there," she near-hissed, jabbing a finger at his forehead. "Despite all this weakness," she really hissed, this time, "do you know what I see, above all else?" Loki had his illusion shake his head slowly. She was leaning forward now, something burning in her gaze. "I see power, Loki. Great untameable power." She tossed another one of her knives at his illusion, dissipating it and allowing the weapon to sink with a dull thunk into the wall. She almost looked disappointed, and turned her head to look at him, the real Loki, who had returned to visibility.

"You could be great, Loki. You _are_ power," she whispered, leaning back and seemingly resigned. Her words had ignited something in him, and while he recognized that she could very well be manipulating him, there was something so honest in her voice that made him believe her.

"Be that as it may," he said, voice slightly raspy, "I am still a prince of Asgard and the only standard for greatness in these halls is the All-Father's."

"And that's why," she said, sounding a little sad, "you will never be truly great." They both knew that she didn't refer to the All-Father's standards.

He cleared his throat, "But I am grateful, however," he said, moving to sit back on the bed, "that someone believes in me." He cocked his head, regarding her. "I am curious, however, as to what you gain from this."

"An ally for my father, of course," she answered, simply. He looked at her to continue. She sighed. "There are few things in this world as intoxicating as power, and you, my dear not-quite husband, are, as I've just said, power." Pulling back the bed linens, he lay down on the bed with his arms crossed behind his head.

"That being said, there of course remains the issue of the necessary vows, my not-quite wife," he said, slightly unsure but parroting her just the same. She acknowledged it with a small incline of her head, but made no move.

"I would like to get to know you, Loki. Not now and certainly not with the few hours left of this day, but I would." She crawled over to his prone form, the few tendrils of hair that had escaped their braids framing her face. "And despite the fact that my father would like for us to have an heir as soon as possible and that your father would likely agree with him, I would very much like not to get pregnant, thank-you-very-much." He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

"How fortuitous then, my dear, that you've married a seidrmann." He turned to look at her, noting they were almost nose-to-nose. He leaned forward to touch his nose to surprisingly cold one and she giggled.

"Lady Ylva Njordrdottir of Vanaheim."

"Prince Loki of Asgard." She had intentionally left out the "Odinson" part, he noted. She was pledging herself to him, Loki, and not Loki Odinson. It left a warm feeling in his chest.

These vows were virtually silent compared to their initial ones with all the pomp and ceremony. She was unresisting when he turned them over, bracing his arms on either side of her chest. A chest that heaved in small, shallow breaths despite her calm face. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her cold nose, then her lips. He sat up, and she followed suit.

"Did I do something wrong?" she said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. Suddenly she was no longer a wickedly clever Vanir woman playing word games and tossing knives at his illusions. She was a girl hardly seven centuries old who had, quite frankly, been forced into his bed. But he wasn't called silvertongue for nothing.

"Nothing at all, dear Ylva. My armour is simply rather difficult to remove."

"Oh." she ducked her head slightly, and when she looked at him again it was with more confidence. She began unraveling the coils of hair that sat upon her head, loosening each snake-braid and letting the mussed locks fall about her head. He watched, as he tucked his armour into his pocket dimensions, as she reached behind her and grimaced.

"I'm afraid," she said, looking at him, "that my handmaidens have laced up my corset a bit too tightly for my liking." He smiled and turned her around, hooking his fingers around the laces and vanishing them with his seidr. There was a small gasp, and Ylva pulled away from him, tugging the leather away from her bodice.

"Never," she said, breathing hard, "underestimate the sadism of your garment-makers." He laughed and pulled her to him, her legs bracketing his hips. It was just the two of them, with a few flimsy layers of fabric between them. Him and her. Loki and Ylva. It was suddenly a whole lot more complicated yet so simple. He'd had his share of the palace girls in the past - a whole half-millennia of experience, really. They were girls his brother had cast aside so they turned to the next prince in line. Some of them, he was sure, were desperate to get pregnant with a prince's child - there were things he could do with his seidr, however, that prevented such mishaps. But Thor, dear Thor, did not, and Loki found himself discreetly casting contraceptive spells on his brother every time they were in a room together, just to make sure. It was, then, all these years of experience that had taught him a range of contraceptive spells. Touching a hand to his lower abdomen, he whispered one and she pulled back to look at him quizzically.

"What was that?"

"Contraceptive spell. You did ask -"

"Oh of course." She smiled nervously, "I did ask."

He'd expected either something stiff and robotic or something wild - he got neither with their coupling. It was amazingly benign, with the air of someone feeling out the opposition, or in this case, a lover. Afterwards, staring and the droplets of blood that stained her pale thighs and the pale sheets, he allowed himself to wonder again what she had seen in him. So many looked past him and to Thor, the "bright star" of the Odinsons. And yet, even as this girl saw far too deeply into him, and even as she saw his scars, there was no distaste or abhorrence in her expression. No, she was intrigued and oddly drawn to him. _Power_ , she had whispered. He wondered, briefly, what she would think of being a queen.

Vanishing most of the offending fluid (but leaving the blood on the sheets, in case one of his father's cronies decided to check), Loki pulled her small body to him. She was asleep already, and her body curved around the arm that held it. Very comfortably benign.

* * *

In the end, Loki decided that it had to have been that small speech about power that drew him. He stopped pranking Thor (mostly) and used his seidr to amuse his Ylva instead. Little things that made her smile made him smile. They had fallen into a comfortable camaraderie and while they still kept secrets, Loki found that he had revealed much more to her than he would to any other.

She was tracing the lines on his face as she sat, bundled up in furs, while he sat across from her mostly nude in his Jotunn form. It, surprisingly (or not), hadn't taken her very long to notice, and while he could shift into his natural form much more comfortably in her presence, he still couldn't bear to look at himself.

"Tell me again what happened that day on the Bifrost," she murmured, her voice and hands caressing him. He smiled, thin lips stretched over pointier teeth.

"- the most inconvenient scuffle with Thor, really," he said, measuring, "I'd fought him and we were hanging off the Bifrost when the All-Father decided to intervene. I told him I could have done it, exterminated the Jotnar."

"And then?"

"'No, Loki,' he said," Loki muttered with no small measure of scorn. "And then I let go."

"But you found your way back."

"After a fashion, yes." 

"What happened, between The Fall and Midgard?" She suspected, obviously, but his time in the Titan's grasp was one of the few things he had not told her. He'd told her of Svartalfheim, his near death, and his mother's near-death as well. But the memories of the Sanctuary - those were places he really did not want to revisit.

"Nothing much, really," he lied, the god of lies. "I landed on a planet, met a few aliens, and visited a few more planets."

"Then Midgard."

"Yes." There was a long silence, long enough that he had begun to consider returning to his Aesir form to hide his discomfort when she finally spoke.

"There's something you're not telling me, Loki." Her tone wasn't accusatory but the words certainly were. "If you can't tell me, can you show me?"

He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. He wouldn't visit those places voluntarily, much less allow someone he cared about experience it. He stared at her, red eyes on her dark ones unflinching.

And she slammed the heel of her palm into his forehead. The memories came rushing back, cold stones and knives and screaming. The Other, plundering his mind. The Titan's children, the Zen-Whoberi and the Luphomoid and Maw and Corvus and Proxima and Cull. Then there was the scepter, the mind stone, the attack and the Tesseract. She finally pulled out of his head, and he opened his eyes to see her with a tear-streaked face and cradling her badly burned hand. Dimly, he was aware he was still in his Jotunn form.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, fearful, "I didn't -" He didn't care for what she had to say, really. Where she had learned to search minds was beyond him (she did have free reign of the library and he had taught her some seidr). He just grabbed his tunic and trousers and cloak and remembered to return to his Aesir form before leaving the room. There was a quiet, simmering anger in him that he hadn't felt in a while. She was always there, a kind face and moderating presence. But now it felt more like betrayal. She didn't know, of course, what had happened, and she wasn't aware of how adverse he was to people in his mind. However, she had done so intentionally and without his consent.

Loki took himself to the garden to have a good sulk.

She avoided him for days after that. He saw her around, mostly in the library or in the garden with a book on her lap and bandages around her hand. Prolonged exposure did burn non-Jotunn skin. Sometimes invisible, he'd watch her look wistfully up at his room, then shake her head and return to her book. Sometimes he saw her fighting back emotions, blinking rapidly with hands balled up into fists before she smoothed and tucked it all away. He knew she kept everything locked up in her mind, just as he did. But he hadn't violated that, loosed all the memories like she did. Anger drove him back to his room, to stop watching.

It had only been a few days, really. When he saw one of her knives in its thigh holster, he wondered if he should return it. He could get into her private room and leave it on her vanity and she would probably take it as a threat. Resigned, he left it as it was.

By midday, Loki had become quite restless and took himself off to the council meetings he was invited to but never was required to attend. Idle, uninteresting talk about trade deals and resources he kept himself informed about simply because there was a small hope in him that he would be able to sit on that throne. There was no War Council - Asgard was currently not involved in any war - and any military-related information was passed from Odin to General Tyr in side conversations. So he was surprised, then, when the matter of armies was brought up.

"- I have said, time and time again, senator, that given the diminutive size of Agullo military, there is no need to assemble a larger force of Einherjar -"

"- simply because they are not of the Nine -"

"-these worlds are under our protection, All-Father -" A messenger came rushing by his invisible form and reported, stuttering to the All-Father that Ahl-Agulla was under attack and that they were calling on Asgard. There was a certain degree of frenzy in the senators' eyes, which diminished when the All-Father dismissed the request.

"It would take a great deal of time to reach the planet, time which we do not have. By then, there would be very little to save."

 _I can walk between worlds, Father_ , Loki almost said, _I know how to wield the Tesseract_. I can take you. I can make you proud with my magic. But he didn't. A few moths ago, he would have been eager to show off like this. Now, there was very little he was willing to do for the All-Father's favour.

Retreating into his rooms, he was surprised to find a note from Ylva in her neat, runic writing. It said, quite simply: _Your conquest has begun_.

Her knife was similarly missing. He could save and subsequently subjugate the Agullo, she was saying. He could begin to rule. Smiling to himself and tucking the note into his pocket dimension, he pulled out his leather armour and took himself to the Bifrost. It was easier to access the branches of Yggdrasil through the Bifrost. Those branches extended throughout the known universe (though the Nine were closest to its trunk). It was just a matter of finding the right one. He was just about to tear open a rift to Ahl-Agulla when someone appeared at his side.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked, unsure, reproachful, yet hopeful. He grabbed her elbow, opened the rift, and pulled them through. They entered into complete chaos. A greyish alien species fighting an orange one. It seemed quite simple, really. All he had to do was draw a barrier between them then let the invaders die. By then word would've gone to the All-Father that the battle was not lost after all and the All-Father might remember he had the Tesseract and come and save the people. Simple, really.

That was, until he saw him. One of the Titan's children, one of the crueler ones. _Glaive_ , his revisited memories whispered at him, _Corvus Glaive_. He turned his head when he saw her call out.

"Power, Loki!" He turned his back. He could not face his demons, ones that were so fresh in his mind.

Just about to reopen the rift and return to Asgard, he saw her on her knees on the battleground, fingertips touching the rocky earth, eyes closed and chanting. The barrier, shimmering and gold. It would've been easier for him to do it, really, but she was forcing his hand. He could leave her here, certainly, but he would have to face his father's wrath and perhaps the Vanir too. He turned back around in time to see Glaive notice his wife and launch his glaive at her. She didn't notice, of course, eyes closed in concentration and those pretty pink lips parted with her ragged breathing.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out with his seidr and blocked the falling glaive. And the Titan's child looked and found him. There was very little he registered after that. The blood, pounding in his ears, the fear that rushed untamed through his body. He'd keep the damn thing off Ylva so she could play the hero and they could leave. _Damn you_ , he growled in the back of his mind, hands and magic parrying with Corvus. It took several dozen illusions and a few bouts of invisibility before Loki finally managed to get behind Corvus Glaive and sink his knife into its neck.

Immediately releasing it, he watched the blood pour out of Corvus' neck as he watched one of his demons struggle for breath.

"You fought me," he whispered, "on the Sanctuary when I was weak and restrained. Let it be known that the Titan's eldest child could not take down Loki of Asgard." He raised himself up, and watched, fascinated, as Ylva closed the barrier around the invading army. Without Glaive to lead them, there was very little they could do as they were crushed by the seidr. He approached her, hand on her shoulder, and lent a little of his own seidr to the task. When it was done, she all but collapsed into him. The fine sheen of sweat and her greyish pallor had him ignoring the Agullo and opening a rift to deposit them in the middle of the the throne room.

"The invaders have been repelled, Ahl-Agulla taken care of," he reported, indifferently as the senators gaped at his blood-stained armour and the equally blood-stained girl in his arms. He veered off to find a Healer. As soon as Eir had informed him that she was stable, he stepped back through the rift to find the Agullo just about ready to swear fealty to him.

One orange-skinned alien he thought might be their regent inclined his head and said, in the common tongue, "We are forever in Asgard's debt, your Grace." Loki decided to be blunt (but sly, of course).

"Asgard did not send me. I am here of my own violition."

"Word did not reach the All-Father?" it asked, rather confused.

"It did. He opted to ignore it." There were quite cries of outrage among the gathered Agullo before the one he was speaking to silenced them.

"Then, Prince Loki, we are forever in your debt. Name your price."

"Just Ahl-Agulla's support in my future endeavors. Good day to you, Regent." He remembered to impale Glaive's corpse with his own glaive before disappearing into the void. Opening rifts was very taxing, despite his considerable magical enterprise. He collapsed into bed as soon as he returned, just remembering to vanish the offending armour.

* * *

This cycle continued for a few months. Every time one of them overheard news about a planet in need of aid, they agreed, by mutual assent, to meet on the Bifrost. He'd watch, every time, as she destroyed whatever army had come, and every time, he was forced to fight another one of the Titan's children. After he had, with great difficulty, killed and decapitated Ebony Maw (arguably one of the worst), he turned to find her sprawled on the ground, armies decimated and her impaled by one of Maw's metal shards. He'd stabilized he with his seidr, ignoring her blood on the ground, and removed the metal.

"Breathe, love," he hissed, trying, and failing miserably to staunch the flow of blood, bright red in stark contrast to pale skin. Everything could go to Hel for all he cared. As long as she lived, as long as he kept her alive long enough for Eir or one of the Healers to fix her, that would be enough. But there was too much damage. It had tore a hole in her abdomen - lungs, stomach and everything. It was like Svartalfheim all over again, except he wasn't bleeding out on alien soil. Aesir, apparently, could survive impaling. Vanir, he wasn't so sure. She was fading, he could tell. He was grasping for hope, for strings that weren't even there, hands coated in her rapidly cooling blood and damn, people were going to die if she didn't survive.

People were going to die. It wasn't enough that Maw had died, decapitated and disembowelled. It should have been more drawn out, more painful, enough to rival the searing, clawing pain and grief that was coursing through him. He let go of her limp hand, stepping back from her body.

"I'll come back for you, love. I'll make sure the people who did this pay and then I'm going to come back and take you to Asgard and have a proper funeral and by the Norns, they will suffer." He stepped into the void.

Afterwards, he told himself he should have taken her body, revenge be damned. Loki had scoured the galaxy, first for the Titan's remaining children, Gamora and Nebula. He'd left Gamora, not quite dead but certainly in pain, on a foreign ship. She had defected, that much was clear. She still had to suffer. The blue one he couldn't do much to - enough was machine that there was very little left to feel pain with. But he'd made her relive all the grafts, all the modifications, all the you-are-not-strong-enoughs in her mind and hoped it was enough. The Other had left, Nebula told him, a bit of respect in her dark eyes. It was just the Titan. Even his favourite plaything, the Kree, had been killed. Of course, the Titan still wanted the stones. But after defending Nidavellir from the Black Order and preventing the Titan from getting the Gauntlet, Loki assumed the Titan was simply looking for stones.

Loki found him, after a few months of searching, on Titan. He'd stayed cloaked in the shadows, watching the Mad Titan reminisce about when Titan was great. He scoffed. There was no one around, just him and his demon, the Titan in ridiculous gold armour that wasn't even Uru and a large, dual bladed sword. He had to confront the demon on both his shoulders, had to deal with all the churning emotion in him.

"Back again so soon, Trickster?" Loki only hissed. "You have a lot of nerve, coming here after slaughtering my children. You will pay, doubly for your failure on Earth and for your continued disobedience."

"You killed her," he hissed, all the rage and pain seeping into his voice. "She was the one good thing in all of it and you killed her." The Titan laughed.

"Did you truly believe you meant something to her, that she belonged to you at all? No, I tell you, Laufeyson, the truth," the Titan grinned, a toothy thing that made his purple face uglier that it already was. The truth. _Whose?_ Loki thought, madly,

_Yours?_

_Mine?_

"You are nobody, Trickster. You belong to me."

" _I am power_." It was a blur after that.

The Titan (Thanos, part of his mind whispered) had laughed and mocked and swung his great sword, but when Loki was at full strength, fueled by anger, and in part madness, the Titan only swung at air. It took time, and a great deal of energy to strip the Titan of his weapons and armour, push the offending creature to its knees. The remaining children of the Titan decided to make their entrance then. He was startled by the landing of the spacecraft, his nerves already frayed, and he almost lost his grip on the Titan when Gamora and Nebula stepped out.

The Titan fought, mouth spewing all the foul things he would do to Loki once he got him. The daughters of Thanos stood to the side, indifferent and watching.

"Gamora-" Thanos almost pleaded, "- my favourite daughter -"

"You are no father of mine," the woman had spit, and that was that. He was nearing the end of his strength when he conjured the four long knives, pinning the Titan down by his limbs and securing him there. Dimly, he was aware that these were hers. Carving runes into the Titan's skin, it was a gristly tribute to his dead wife and all that the Titan had taken from him. Breaking open the Titan's back, Loki methodically severed each rib from his spine, pulling the ribcage outwards and exposing its still-beating heart.

He'd been methodical, painstaking in his rune carving so that when it was all laid out, the runes were still visible in bright, purple blood. The sisters had come, then, and done their part. They had seen him do the same to several of their former prisoners and they wanted their tormenter to feel.

"Favourite daughter," Gamora hissed, "but you took everything from me, my family, my people, my choice." She spread the Titans lungs out over the broken ribs.

Nebula hated the Titan for changing her, saying every modification made her stronger. He'd wiped her memories of her past, and all she knew was her time as the second, less-favoured daughter of Thanos. Closing her mechanical hand over the heart of the Mad Titan, she tore it out.

Fitting, that he would die by his own hand. He had made Nebula, after all.

* * *

Loki returned to find her body, after the fact. He had hidden it away and put a stasis on it so he could send her off properly when he was done. But it was gone, the only evidence it had ever been there a bloody smear on the ground, bright and fresh from his stasis. He returned to Asgard, disguised, to find the All-Father in the Odinsleep. The people thought him dead. Thor still mourned.

He sent the All-Father to Midgard.

He was king now, Loki thought with some satisfaction. He'd conquered and plotted and the All-Father was under his spell on Thor's favourite realm. He was king, albeit under his father's image. If his mother were still alive, he wouldn't have done all this. But she was dead because his father refused to take action. She was dead. It was painful, hearing senators and generals offer him condolences for the loss of his wife. Frigga, not Ylva. He was still under the guise of being Odin, after all. Even then, it was bittersweet.

The Nine were under his control, without a talk of dissent. Odin had changed, they whispered. His son had died an honourable death and gone to Valhalla and the All-Father was making sure the Realms under his rule were completely safe. Trade, economy, culture, all of these prospered within Asgard and the Nine.

Of course, four years later, it had to have been Thor who ruined it all. Thor, bringing the crown of the Fire-Demon Sutur, bringing Ragnarok to Asgard's own gates. It should have been left. The fire demons couldn't leave Muspelheim without the Bifrsost and Asgard would've been safe if Thor let it be. Of course, he didn't.

Thor had seen through the illusion (he was his brother, after all) and hauled him off to Midgard to bring back his fool of a father.

"I swear I left him here," Loki said, trying not to let his disappointment show. Of course, one of Midgard's sorcerers had to intervene. It was like falling through the cosmos again, except without the stars. Thirty, gods-forsaken minutes. The sorcerer didn't know, of course, and neither did his brother. Neither knew that he was murderously angry, only that he was murderous. There was very little he could do about that.

Then he met his father again. Thor, with his accusing eyes.

"I love you, my sons," the All-Father had said. And then revealed that there was an older sister involved in all this. Really, he should have been better prepared for everything.

The All-Father faded to golden dust and Thor glared at him, blaming him for everything. Behind them, a black-blue tear began to form in the air. _Nifleheim_ , Loki knew, instantly. A dark-haired woman stepped through the portal and bid them kneel.

Of course, Thor, the fool, had to antagonize her, and he had to back his brother up. Thor launched Mjolnir at Hela, firstborn of Odin, and she stopped the hammer.

Caught the weapon only Thor could weild and shattered it into pieces of dull uru. Terrified, he was about to call Heimdall to take them back when a form in the portal gave him pause.

"Kneel," Hela commanded. The form in the portal became a woman.

"Mistress, please," the woman pleaded, in a voice so familiar and haunting he pinched himself to make sure.

"I know, Ylva. Go back inside. You know the dead cannot be in the land of the living." The woman's face was clearer now, and she turned her eyes to him.

"Loki," she breathed, wanting to reach out but needing to go back, torn. He knew he had a good rein on his emotions, but his breath caught and his eyes stung. Even Thor, the fool, would know how he felt. Loki stepped closer to the portal and his step sister, wanting to be closer to the person standing in the doorway between life and death.

"You left me," she said, accusing.

"I came back for you, but you were gone." Whatever she may have said to that, Loki didn't hear. Hela waved her hand and the portal vanished, taking his Ylva with it. He turned his murderous glare on his sister.

"She, loyal handmaiden that she is, has persuaded me to share. So as long as I sit on the throne in Asgard, you may live."

"Perhaps we can come to an agreement," Loki murmured, burying all resentment and anger deep within his psyche. They did agree, in the end. Thor wanted to gallivant around the universe with what he called the "Guardians of the Galaxy". So they gave him Midgard, Svartalfheim, and Muspelheim, given that one world had nothing on it, one was entirely autonomous, and one whose king he'd defeated. He'd have plenty of time to save the world.

Loki got Jotunheim, which would have been his right by birth, and Vanaheim, his by marriage.

Hela got Helheim, her domain, and Nifleheim, her prison. There was a bit of a fight between the darker siblings for Asgard. Hela insisted that it was her birthright, but Loki tried to persuade her that it would still be hers. She'd get a throne and she'd rule the Nine alongside her brothers, but given that she really had no knack or want for politics and culture, Asgard should be his to rule. He wasn't called silvertongue for nothing, and by the end, Loki had Asgard and Hela Alfheim (a world she had subjugated during her time as Odin's Executioner, a story she shared with some nostalgia).

* * *

They'd restructured much of the palace to accommodate for their estranged sister. Three thrones instead of one, and admitting to the people that Loki had been masquerading as Odin for the better part of four years. They'd redecorated one of the smaller ballrooms, tearing down the murals of Odin and turning it into a history display - Hela, the Executioner, was featured heavily. She resurrected her dead army and her pet wolf with the Eternal Flame. The dead returned to their crypt, waiting to be called upon, and Fenris got his own stables. Thankfully, Hela saw to him personally, so there was only one incident of a missing horse.

They had settled into a nice routine, with Hela occasionally accompanying Thor off-world to sate some of her bloodlust.

A stifling afternoon found Loki sitting on her favourite bench, fiddling with one of her conjured daggers. That was how Hela found him, touching the pale metal as he fought back tears.

"That was her's, wasn't it."

"Whose?" Loki said, feigning innocence.

"Ylva's," his sister said impatiently. "She was my handmaiden for years. Of course I'd know."

"Yes." His heart broke a little to know that his sister had been with Ylva longer than he had. They hadn't even made it to a year before she was taken from him. His sister sat down beside him.

"While I was locked away in Nifleheim, I watched Odin's spawn. The Eternal Flame transcends time and space. I saw her taken, and I took her in. She wouldn't have made it to Valhalla, anyways. She didn't have a weapon on hand." Loki's eyes were raw with feeling, but he said nothing.

"She'd tell me about this place, her little refuge after the incident. We watched you hunt down her killers, all the while wishing she could be with you."

"Why are you telling me this?" Loki's voice sounded rough to his own ears.

"There is a way. Death can be bargained with. A soul for a soul."

"Yes."

She'd taken him with her to Helheim, to the throne of Death, and bade him kneel. He told Death that he'd killed the Titan for her, carved runes into Thanos' skin so Death could find him. A bargain with Death.

Loki and Hela had scarcely exited the portal when she barreled into him, arms and legs twining around him.

"Loki!" She was there, in the flesh, tired but ecstatic.

He had her, and that was all he really needed.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfic I've ever written and completed, so feedback would be really appreciated.


End file.
